{"id":740431,"date":"2026-04-20T08:03:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/740431\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T08:03:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:03:34","slug":"federal-plans-for-colorado-river-may-not-work-under-extreme-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/740431\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal plans for Colorado River may not work under extreme drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

The multitude of water managers tasked with overseeing the drying Colorado River system<\/a> stand at a dire crossroads.<\/p>\n

As a yearslong stalemate in negotiations persists between the seven states that share the river, it\u2019s become increasingly likely that the federal government will impose its own long-term plan, choosing from a range of proposals officials have outlined in recent months.<\/p>\n

But experts and water managers across the 250,000-square-mile Colorado River basin are raising the alarm about the five plans, questioning if any of them hold up under the new climate reality. They say the federal plans won\u2019t keep the system from crashing in critically dry years \u2014 which are becoming more frequent \u2014 and could wreak chaos on the pivotal lifeline for 40 million people in the American Southwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every one of those alternatives, under what they call critically dry hydrology, the system is failing,\u201d said Andy Mueller, the general manager of the Colorado River District<\/a>, a taxpayer-funded agency based in Glenwood Springs that works to protect Western Slope water. \u201cAnd critically dry hydrology is what we have continued to see consistently in the basin in the last 25 years and what we should expect going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate change and persistent drought have already sapped hundreds of billions of gallons of water from the river\u2019s annual flow. Officials from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation took emergency action<\/a> Friday to add more water to Lake Powell \u2014 one of the system\u2019s two major reservoirs downstream of the river\u2019s headwaters in the Colorado mountains \u2014 after updated projections showed that spring flows into the already-low reservoir could be less than a third of average.<\/p>\n

Federal water managers over the next year will release hundreds of millions of gallons of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming and Utah to keep Lake Powell above \u201cminimum power pool\u201d \u2014 the reservoir elevation needed to send water through hydropower turbines. Without access to the turbines, water released from the dam must flow through much smaller bypass tubes that are unsafe to use for extended periods<\/a>, choking flow from one of the West\u2019s largest water banks.<\/p>\n

Emergency decisions like those taken Friday illustrate some of the risks of failing to prepare for intense drought, experts say.<\/p>\n

In extremely dry years, the longer-term plans under consideration by Reclamation would allow the water levels of the system\u2019s two main reservoirs to repeatedly fall below minimum power pool. Federal officials then would be forced to make recurring emergency cuts to the water supplies of the three states downstream of the reservoirs, creating uncertainty for millions of people and a massive agricultural industry.<\/p>\n

For more than two years, negotiators from the seven states that rely on the river have tried and failed to agree on a new plan to operate the river<\/a> that runs from Colorado\u2019s high country to Mexico. The technical nitty-gritty of the disputes is wonky, but the key issue underlying the schism between the states is simple: Who should be forced to use less water \u2014 and how much less \u2014 as the Colorado River\u2019s flows shrink?<\/p>\n

Reclamation officials on Friday said they are preparing to implement their own plan this summer if the states can\u2019t agree on answers to those questions. In January, federal officials released five potential operational guidelines \u2014 called \u201calternatives\u201d in federal jargon \u2014 and asked for input.<\/p>\n

They got an earful of feedback<\/a>, including critiques from across the basin asserting that none of their plans would function well in dry years. That criticism also applied to the only plan the Bureau of Reclamation can implement without consensus from the basin states or without gaining new legal powers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>A map of the Colorado River basin. (Click image to enlarge)<\/p>\n

Letters from a number of Colorado entities \u2014 including the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments<\/a>, irrigation districts<\/a>, the Western Slope\u2019s Club 20<\/a> and county commissions from a vast swath of the state \u2014 urged federal officials to present at least one plan that would hold up in extremely dry years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSound science dictates that Colorado River management must evolve to handle a permanently drier future,\u201d Tina Bergonzini, the general manager of the Grand Valley Water Users Association, wrote in her comments to the bureau<\/a>. \u201cThe current federal preference for predictability is an atmospheric impossibility given that studies indicate rising temperatures have already slashed river flows by a fifth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bureau of Reclamation officials declined an interview request for this story. But they have publicly acknowledged the risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn critically dry periods, all of the alternatives have unacceptable performance,\u201d bureau engineer Rebecca Smith said during a Jan. 29 webinar about the plans<\/a>. Even imposing large cuts to water usage in those years would not keep the major reservoirs at functional levels, she said.<\/p>\n

The conflict on the Colorado is likely one of the world\u2019s first major water policy overhauls to grapple with the reality of climate change, said Brad Udall<\/a>, a senior water and climate research scholar at Colorado State University\u2019s Colorado Water Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the past, Colorado River managers made operational tweaks and short-term deals to address drought. This time, it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not looking at an incremental step here,\u201d Udall said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at a complete redo of how we operate this resource that affects 40 million people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SnowmeltSnowmelt feeds the Colorado River near its headwaters on April 6, 2026, in Rocky Mountain National Park. Historically low snowpack in Colorado is exacerbating drought conditions across the Colorado River Basin. (Photo by RJ Sangosti\/The Denver Post)
\n\u2018Downright scary what\u2019s going on\u2019<\/p>\n

The West first wrestled with divvying up the powerful Colorado River in 1922, when delegates from each of the seven states met in Santa Fe and signed the Colorado River Compact<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At its most basic, the compact divides up the 18 million acre-feet of water then estimated to be in the river \u2014 including 7.5 million acre-feet reserved for the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, and 7.5 million acre-feet for the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada. An acre-foot of water is the volume of water it takes to cover an acre of land in a foot of water \u2014 about 326,000 gallons \u2014 and is generally considered the annual water consumption of two families.<\/p>\n

The 18 million acre-feet was likely an overestimation of how much water there was even a century ago, but today\u2019s river provides even less than the total amounts promised to states in 1922.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2000, the flows have been radically different,\u201d Udall said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The 20-year average annual flow measured in 1925 was 17.6 million acre-feet, Bureau of Reclamation data show. In 2025, it was 12.7 million acre-feet.<\/p>\n

But even that number hides the reality of recent dry years. The five-year average amounts to only 10.9 million acre-feet. Last year\u2019s flow measured at 8.5 million acre-feet.<\/p>\n

This year will be even lower due to record-low snowpack<\/a> across much of the basin.<\/p>\n

The conditions this year are not a one-off, Udall said, but symptoms of a larger warming trend fueled by human-caused global climate change. Hotter temperatures not only increase water loss through evaporation but also make plants and soils thirstier, reducing the amount of water that flows downstream. Evidence is also piling up indicating that climate change is reducing precipitation across the Colorado River\u2019s headwaters, Udall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is quite nerve-racking \u2014 and perhaps just downright scary \u2014 what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Reclamation acknowledges the likelihood of a hotter, drier future in its draft environmental impact statement, though it shies away from using the term climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basin is experiencing increased aridity due to climate variability, and long-term drought and low-runoff conditions are expected in the future,\u201d the document\u2019s executive summary states.<\/p>\n

\"SnowSnow remains visible on the mountains in the background as people wash their vehicles at a car wash on April 6, 2026, in Kremmling, Colorado. The town of Kremmling has already enacted water restrictions for the coming summer. (Photo by RJ Sangosti\/The Denver Post)
\nExpect more critically dry years<\/p>\n

Future hydrology is the biggest and most impactful uncertainty federal officials must reckon with while crafting plans for the river, Smith said in the January webinar.<\/p>\n

The bureau modeled hundreds of potential future conditions and then compared how each of its five proposed plans would perform under different levels of river flow over the next 20 years, broken into three categories:<\/p>\n